The apple doesn't fall far

Gwyneth Paltrow = Tree

It is amazing to me the impact parents have on their children.  Even at an age where you would think you could stop crying over it, or being afraid, or feeling unworthy, it hits you again.

I have a friend who is falling apart because of the treatment (or lack thereof) from her father and step-mother.  She's almost 40 but as vulnerable and pained as a child of 6 years.  It's really heartbreaking.  And let's not even get started on me...

But when you realize that the #1 source of all our information, whether emotional, intellectual or otherwise comes from of these 2 beings that gave us life it's no wonder so many of us have issues.  I remember thinking that if my dad said the sky was brown instead of blue, I would argue it to death with those who insisted it was blue, solely because "my dad told me so"...  [BTW, Steve Martin just knocked at my brain's door with his "try teaching your kid all the words wrong" routine, funniest bit he ever did]

Now I'm a parent, and this enlightement of sorts is not helping me at all in the "don't beat yourself up" department, as I constantly question my parenting skills.  The things I say and/or do...  how I hear our daughter replicating the things I say and in the exact way I say them and our son is affectionate to a fault. 

But to me, being affectionate could never be to a fault, so I guess some things I'll just have to own...

G